Empty Promises
by Laura-Grace
Summary: AU They swore they would always stay together. Though the raging fever that threatened to kill Makkusu, through Rei’s former gang stalking them, through Takao’s serious injuries, through Kyojiu’s disappearance and through the times of famine, droug
1. The Remembering Time

Empty Promises

_A/U  They swore they would always stay together. Though the raging fever that threatened to kill Makkusu, through Rei's former gang stalking them, through Takao's serious injuries, through Kyojiu's disappearance and through the times of famine, drought, revolution. Then the police caught Kai one day, and that all changed…_

A/N: Okay, this takes place in, like, really old times. Before electricity and cars and phones and all that jazz. As far as I know, Max's Japanese pronunciation is Makkusu, so I'm keeping it that way. And what's Kenny's again: Kyojiu????? If I don't find it by the time I'm ready to upload, I'm keeping it as Kyojiu. Oh, and

**_NO YAOI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_**

Ahem. Now that that's done.

DISCLAIMER: I own virtually nobody.

**Chapter 1**

**The Remembering Time**

                "Hey, whose turn is it tonight?" a dismal voice asked from the far corner of the slave quarters.

                "I think it was Blue's turn." another voice answered.

                "Not possible. Blue's been sold."

                "Well, then, it would be Outsider's."

                "All right, Outsider, what's your story?"

                Outsider, as he was called, propped himself up on his elbows, head in his hands. He could see Red, as he was called, sitting up against the wall, wrapped in his ratted blanket. From the other side, another few slaves whose nicknames he couldn't remember were all looking at him. Or at least in his general direction.

                In fact, he had trouble remembering his own real name. He had been here for nearly two months now. He was Outsider, slave in the House of Demario.

                "Well, Outsider?" Pup asked. "It's your turn to remember."

                Outsider was silent until Red spoke up. "Hey, Outsider, what's it like… outside? You know, for free people?"

                "The market square," Quiver said. "What's the market square like?"

                Suddenly, the entire crammed quarters were alive with slaves scrambling to ask Outsider questions about the free world. All these guys were born slaves. Even the oldest ones were slaves all their lives.

                Outsider was silent for a few seconds more when he said, "Kai. My name was Kai."

                "Well, Kai, what about school?" Little Guy asked. "You know how Master Demario's son hates school. Is it really as bad as he makes it out to be?"

                "Fruit," Dreamer sighed. "Fresh fruit. Not the spoiled stuff they give us. Fresh apples and oranges and pears and berries and—"

                "Stop!" Red moaned, clutching his stomach. "We get the idea!"

                "Swimming," Little Guy continued. "What was swimming like?"

                "Fresh bread. Soft bread. Tasty bread. The bread Master Demario and his son eat every day."

                "_Dreamer," Red groaned._

                "Living in a house." Quiver added. "Not a slimy old root cellar like this."

                "Sugar. Candy. Chocolate. Spices."

                "DREAMER!"

                "Freedom." Pup sighed, adequately summing up all the questions. "Why would anybody give it up?"

                "Nobody in their right mind would," Outsider answered softly. "But I guess my future had other ideas about that."

                "What was it like, outside, for you, Outsider?" Dreamer asked.

                "How'd you end up here, any way?" Red asked, still glaring at Dreamer from across the room.

                Outsider was silent again for a minute before he got swept back into his life as Kai…


	2. Rei: Running From Nothing

Empty Promises

A/N: So? What do you think? *looks pathetically hopeful* And just as a reminder: NO YAOI, shamelessly A/U and shamelessly OOC.

DISCLAIMER: I own nobody.

LYRICS: _Paper Tigers,_ Jaci Velasquez

**Chapter 2**

**Rei: Running From Nothing**

_                "Well," Outsider said slowly. "When I was free, I lived on the streets. Well, not quite on the streets, but in an old burnt-out building. That building was the stopover point for a lot of broke travelers and drunkards, pimps, and every other kind of street trash. I mean, sure, some decent people came and went, but most of the time it was some pretty shady characters._

_                "The earliest thing I ever remember is when I met the first boy who would join me in the upper-level apartment I managed to beat others to. We had both been about 7 at the time, I guess…"_

**Heart pounds**

**To the sound**

**Comin' after me**

                Kai looked up from his spot, stretched out on top of the canopy of one of the peddlers in the market square. He was enjoying his nicked apple. It was perfect: shiny, round, red, juicy, yummy. 

                A young boy about his age was running from something. He was dressed in bright blue pants, a white tunic and a wide yellow slip of material was wound around his waist as a makeshift belt. His jet-black hair was partly in a ponytail wound with white material and ending in a red band. The other part was flying over top of a strip of red material wound as a headband of sorts. He had on shoes, a rarity among street kids. All the clothes, and the boy, looked as if they'd been through rain, sun and mud.

                Jumping from the canopy to the eaves of the building nearby, Kai looked up past where the boy had been running from. Nobody seemed to be pursuing him.

**Step back**

**What is that?**

**It's a mystery**

**Is it somethin'**

**Probably nothin'**

**Still I find a way to scare myself**

                The strange boy stopped, looked back fearfully, then leaned over, trying to catch his breath.

                Kai jumped back down to the ground nimbly. Then he walked right up to the stranger. "Who's after you?"

                The boy jumped and then relaxed. "Nobody, I guess." He answered, looking up at Kai. Though he spoke in Commonire, the language spoken by most of the world's street rats, his voice was heavily accented with that of a native of Chynah, the neighbouring country to this one, Jepin.

                "So why are you running?" Kai asked logically.

                "Guess I got a little scared," the boy mumbled. "Some guy gave me the evil eye and called me a _neko-ma_. I don't know what that means, but it sounded threatening."

                Kai studied the boy for a second. "It's true, you do look sort of like one. But I think I know the guy you're talking about. He calls everybody some sort of demon."

                "He called me a demon?" the boy asked. "That's what _neko-ma means?"_

                "Actually, it means cat demon." Kai said. "Don't pay attention to him. Nobody else does. I'm Kai, by the way."

                "Rei." The boy responded.

**'Til I remember**

**This all feels familiar**

**And I know better**

                Rei refused to leave Kai alone for the rest of the day, and he was _good at following. No matter how hard he tried, Kai could not shake him._

                "Will you leave me alone?!" Kai finally exclaimed as the sun was going down and he was heading back to the penthouse of the run-down building.

                "Well, see, I don't really… have a place to stay." Rei muttered. "And I'm not really… supposed to be here."

                "Your problem, not mine." Kai said easily and jumped a fencetop where a snarling dog lay in wait for a misstep. He made a face at the guard dog then jumped onto the rooftop of another house. All the while, Rei continued to follow him, after looking down at the dog, shuddering.

                "Please, Kai?" Rei begged. "If the police catch me, they'll hurt me and sell me into slavery. Or they'll boot me back to Chynah. I don't want to go back! Please, Kai? They won't bother me if I'm with you."

                Kai sighed. "Oh fine. But don't expect me to come looking for you if you get lost."

                "Thank you, Kai!" Rei said happily. "And don't worry. I've got a good memory."

                "And don't expect me to look after you." Kai continued, ignoring Rei's joyful response.

**They are only paper tigers following me**

**In the wild imagination of the make-believe**

**And there's a fighter, a survivor arising in me**

**I'm not afraid of paper tigers**

                "All right, why am I convinced you're one of those middle-class kids who run away from home just for something to do?" Kai asked as he dragged the startled Rei up the stairs.

                "No!" Rei insisted, shaking his head. "I swear I've lived on the streets my whole life!"

                "Your claim doesn't catch me," Kai told him.****

**Night brings**

**Creepy things**

**And I hide away**

                Later that night, the familiar sounds of the police on their coal-black stallions clip-clopped through the streets and they yelled back and forth about who caught who doing what and who was being let go for doing this and that slowly lulled the two boys to sleep. There was still drunkards staggering into the building on the main level. Any courtesans and call girls who had been 'employed' for the night were all… busy. A small child wailed from somewhere down the road, in the more respectable housing.

                Rei, for all that he continued to swear he'd been living on the streets his whole life, had certainly been caught off-guard when Smooth, the resident pimp, had come swaggering up to him and started sweet-talking. Kai had been forced to tell Smooth off and drag Rei upstairs before anybody else took advantage of him.

**False fears**

**Disappear**

**In the light of day**

                Rei's eyes flew open as somebody, or something, swished past the window, making the blanket that passed as a door start moving.

                'Kai already thinks I'm a rich kid,' he told himself. 'But I'm not. I haven't even seen an entire dinea in my life. If I start showing that I'm scared of the wind, he'll be convinced and there goes Rei, booted back to Chynah.'

                He closed his eyes uneasily and turned his back to the wall, so that just in case they did come, he didn't have his back turned.****

**The sun is rising**

**I'm realizing**

**The only thing to fear is fear itself**

                As the sun began to rise, Rei awoke to find Kai already starting to head out the window. "Um, Kai?"

                "Oh, you're up." Kai answered, turning around. "Good. Come with me."

                "Why are you going out the window?"

                "Because I don't want a repeat of yesterday night, now come on." Kai responded, then slipped out the window onto the eaves of the building. Rei followed along behind him.

                Rei looked around, but didn't see anybody he recognized. Maybe it was silly of him to assume that they would follow him all the way to Jepin.****

**Now I am certain**

**That my beast of burden**

**Isn't worth the worry**

                In the next few weeks, Rei still hadn't seen hide nor hair of anybody from Chynah. Slowly, he relaxed and actually found himself enjoying the freedom of sorts that the streets of Jepin held. While back in Chynah, the police were apt to arrest you if you didn't have a job of some sort or weren't in a group who had a legal breadwinner, the Jepin police could care less. So long as they didn't _see you taking stuff from the stalls, you were fairly free to do what you pleased.****_

**They are only paper tigers following me**

**In the wild imagination of the make-believe**

**And there's a fighter, a survivor arising in me**

**I'm not afraid**

**And I won't run away from paper tigers**


	3. Takao and Kyojiu: Searching For Somethin...

Empty Promises

A/N: If it gets too confusing, just let me know, 'kay? I can't straighten it out if I don't know what's bugging you.

DISCLAIMER: I own nobody. 

**Chapter 3**

**Takao and Kyojiu: Searching For Something**

_                "So what else?" Little Guy asked eagerly. He was the youngest, at only 7 years old._

_                Outsider sighed again. "Well, I finally realized I wasn't getting rid of Rei. So we stuck together, and about half a year after that, we met another couple of street kids. These guys were about two years younger than us."_

                "Hey, Kai, don't you ever pay for anything we eat?" Rei asked one morning, as Kai returned from the morning nicking.

                "Don't think so. Maybe I have once or twice, but where am I going to get the money?" Kai answered comfortably, tossing an orange to Rei across the room. Rei caught it reluctantly and started peeling. "The only way for a kid to earn money around these parts to get a job with Smooth." He shuddered.

                "Well, back in Chynah, some kids offered to carry parcels for richer market shoppers for a dinea or two." Rei said, biting into a slice of orange.

                "Kid, you're not in Chynah anymore." Kai told him. "Nobody trusts you if you're a street rat here."

                "Well, what sorts of jobs does Smooth give kids?" Rei asked innocently.

                Kai gave him a funny look. "And you call yourself an experienced street rat? Do I really need to tell you any more than you don't want a job from Smooth?"  
                "No," Rei mumbled, flushing. Then he sat up straight as the sounds of two kids yelling and screaming reached the upper level. He looked across the room at Kai, who grumbled about always having to play the hero and motioned for Rei to come.

                Normally, they stayed away from using the staircase and front entrance because of Smooth's constant vigilance. But now they picked their way down, over passed-out people and goodness knew what else.

                Once in the main level, they saw a couple of kids, a little younger than them, screaming and crying and kicking at Smooth, who had gotten his cronies to grab them.

                "Hey!" Kai yelled. "Let them go!"

                Startled, the cronies released them and the two scampered behind Kai and Rei.

                "Hey, kid, you're gettin' real irritating," Smooth snapped.

                "Yeah, well, you disgust me!" Kai snapped back. "Get a _real job!"_

                "Thank you," one child said shakily as Rei and Kai took them back to the penthouse. "I'm Kyojiu."

                "I'm Takao!" The other one yelled, not wanting to be ignored.

                "I'm Rei, and that's Kai." Rei introduced, while Kai left to go find some more food for the two new boys.

                "You're not from Jepin." Takao noted.

                "No." Rei admitted. "But don't tell any of those police that."

                "I don't like the police." Takao said. "They chased us all down the street. They made Kyojiu fall over and get a hurt on his leg."

                "See?" Kyojiu said, showing Rei a nasty scrape on his knee.

                "My grampa said that the police are all cururuppeded." Takao announced.

                "'Course they're corrupt." Kai muttered, returning through the window with a couple of bananas.

                "Bananas?" Rei whined. "How come they get bananas? We never get no bananas!"

                "Shut up, Rei. We've already eaten."

                "I wanna banana too." Rei grumbled as Takao and Kyojiu eagerly accepted the rare fruit.

                "We're gonna become explorers and go find Takao's dad!" Kyojiu said that night.

                "Uh-huh!" Takao added excitedly. "And we're gonna be so smart that no slave catchers are ever gonna catch us!"

                "Right!" Kyojiu joined in again. "'Cause I don't like them slave catchers. They're mean."

                "They were hitting my grampa a lot when they took him away," Takao added.

                "Hmm." Kai said, staring out the window.

                "Hey, why don't you stay with us?" Rei asked. "Kai wouldn't mind."

                "Yeah!" Kyojiu cheered.


End file.
